Entourage of Ezhov & Stalin - reply

[Prof Steven P Hill]

Dear colleagues and Prof Chandler:

I have always assumed that Comrade Malenkov tended to OBESITY,
 i.e., was definitely not svelte (thin).  Or did he add all those extra 
kilograms after WW2?

Also, does it seem that Comrade Zhdanov (A. A. Zhdanov) does
not appear in Grossman's depiction of the Ezhovs' party?

Happy holidays to all,
Steven P Hill,
University of Illinois.
______________________________________________________________

Date: Mon 14 Dec 00:03:47 CST 2009
From: <LISTSERV at bama.ua.edu> 
Subject: Re: GETPOST SEELANGS
To: "Steven P. Hill" <s-hill4 at ILLINOIS.EDU>

Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 06:18:52 +0000
From: Robert Chandler <kcf19 at DIAL.PIPEX.COM>
Subject: Stalin's entourage

Dear all,
Vasily Grossman¹s story ŒMama¹ is about a small girl (she is still alive, to
the best of my knowledge!) who was adopted from an orphanage by the Yezhovs.
We glimpse the Yezhov household, and their guests, primarily through this
girl¹s eyes.  Below is my translation of a passage about the Œguests¹,
followed by my endnotes.  Can anyone identify the first of these guests?
And does anyone have any corrections to the rest of my notes?

And then there were Father¹s guests.  There was one who kept giving a little
laugh; he had a guttural voice and a nose that seemed to be always trying to
sniff something.  There was a man who always smelt of wine, with a loud
voice and broad shoulders. There was a thin little man with very dark eyes;
he usually came early, with a briefcase, and left before they¹d sat down to
supper. There was a dark-skinned man with a pot belly and moist red lips;
one evening he took Nadya in his arms and sang her a little song. [i]

Once she saw a guest with a pink face and grey hair, in military uniform.
He drank a lot of wine, then sang.  There was a guest who seemed to make
Mama feel shy; he had small glasses and a large forehead and he stuttered.
Unlike the others, who wore military jackets of one kind or another, he wore
an ordinary jacket and a tie.  He told Nadya in an affectionate voice that
he had a little daughter too.[ii]

Marfa Dementyevna couldn¹t remember which was Beria and which was Betal
Kalmykov, and she kept forgetting that the thin man with a brief case was
Malenkov. Kaganovich, Molotov and Voroshilov, on the other hand, she
recognized from the photographs she used to see of them in the
newspapers.[iii] 

i] I have not been able to identify the man with the guttural voice who kept
giving a little laugh.  The other three men, in order of appearance, are
Betal Kalmykov, Georgy Malenkov and Lazar Kaganovich. Betal Kalmykov was the
local Party boss in Karbardino-Balkaria, an autonomous republic in the North
Caucasus.  Georgy Malenkov was at this time the Central committee¹s
personnel officer.
[ii]  These two Œguests¹ are Voroshilov and Beria.
[iii]   Stalin¹s three most important allies.  All three were full members
of the Politburo.

VSEGO DOBROGO,
ROBERT
_________________________________________________________________

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